i want an enemies list!

[Guest guest]

its amazin how you can almost look fondly back on nixon nowadays....

 

Bush Leagues

White House keeps dossiers on more than 10,000 'political

enemies'

By DOUG THOMPSON

Capitol Hill Blue

Nov 8, 2005, 06:40

 

Spurred by paranoia and aided by the USA Patriot Act, the

Bush Administration has compiled dossiers on more than

10,000 Americans it considers political enemies and uses

those files to wage war on those who disagree with its policies.

 

The " enemies list " dates back to Bush's days as governor of

Texas and can be accessed by senior administration officials

in an instant for use in campaigns to discredit those who

speak out against administration policies or acts of the

President.

 

The computerized files include intimate personal details on

members of Congress; high-ranking local, state and federal

officials; prominent media figures and ordinary citizens who

may, at one time or another, have spoken out against the

President or Administration.

 

Capitol Hill Blue has spoken with a number of current and

former administration officials who acknowledge existence of

the enemies list only under a guarantee of confidentiality.

Those who have seen the list say it is far more extensive

than Richard Nixon's famous " enemies list " of Watergate fame

or Bill Clinton's dossiers on political enemies.

 

" How is that you think Karl (Rove) and Scooter (Libby) were

able to disseminate so much information on Joe Wilson and

his wife " says one White House aide. " They didn't have that

information by accident. They had it because they have files

on those who might hurt them. "

 

White House insiders tell disturbing tales of invasion of

privacy, abuse of government power and use of expanded

authority under the USA Patriot Act to dig into the personal

lives of anyone the administration deems an enemy of the state.

 

Those on the list include former Ambassador Joseph Wilson

and his wife, former covert CIA operative Valarie Plame,

along with filmmaker and administration critic Michael

Moore, Senators like California's Barbara Boxer, media

figures like liberal writer Joe Conason and left-wing

bloggers like Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (the Daily Kos) and

Ana Marie Cox (Wonkette).

 

" If you want to know who's sleeping with whom, who drinks

too much or has a fondness for nose candy, this is the place

to find it, " says another White House aide. " Karl (Rove)

operates under the rule that if you fuck with us, we'll fuck

you over. "

 

Rove started the list while Bush served as governor of

Texas, compiling information on various political enemies in

the state and leaking damaging information on opponents to

friends in the press. The list grew during Bush's first run

for President in 2000 but the names multiplied rapidly after

the terrorist attacks of 2001 and passage of the USA Patriot

Act. Using the powers under the act, Rove expanded the list

to more than 10,000 names, utilizing the FBI's " national

security letters " to gather private and intimate details on

American citizens.

 

National security letters, which can be issued by an FBI

supervisor without a judge's review or approval, allows the

bureau to examine the telephone calls, correspondence and

financial lives of any Americans.

 

The FBI issues some 30,000 national security letters a year

to employers, credit bureaus, banks, travel agencies and

other sources of information on American citizens. The

Patriot Act also forbids anyone receiving such a letter to

reveal they have passed on information to the federal

government.

 

" Those letters helped us build files quickly on those we

needed to know more about, " says a former White House aide.

 

The database of political enemies of the Bush administration

is not maintained on White House computers and is located on

a privately-owned computer offsite, but can be accessed

remotely by a select list of senior aides, including Rove.

The offsite location allowed the database to escape

detection by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald during

his investigation of the Valerie Plame leak. The database is

funded by private donations from Bush political backers and

does not appear on the White House budget or Federal

Election Commission campaign reports.

 

Bush is not the first President to use the FBI to keep track

of his enemies. Richard M. Nixon used FBI files to try and

discredit his opponents, including Daniel Ellsberg, the

Department of Defense employee who leaked the Pentagon

Papers to The New York Times. Bill Clinton used the FBI to

compile dossiers on critics like Conservative Congressman

Bob Barr and legal gadfly Larry Klayman of Judicial Watch.

 

But worried White House insiders say the intelligence

gathered by the Bush administration is far larger, more

extensive and potentially more damaging than the excesses of

previous occupants of the White House. Even worse, it

dovetails into a pattern of spying on Americans that has

become commonplace since Bush took office.

 

" We're talking about Big Brother at its most extreme, " says

one White House staffer. " We know things about people that

their spouses don't know and, if it becomes politically

expedient, we will make sure the rest of the world knows. "

 

The White House press office did not respond to a request

for an interview on this story and did not return phone

calls seeking comment.

 

 

" Just as nightfall does not come at once, neither

does oppression. In both instances there is a twilight. And it is in such

twilight

that we all must be aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become

unwilling victims of the darkness. "

William O. Douglas